The fact that two studies have suggested laws designed to ensure Minnesota maintains a certain amount of wetlands aren’t working imply the need for change. And soon.

The reports, one by the Department of Natural Resources and the other by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, suggest that current laws aren’t fully protecting Minnesota’s wetlands.

The state’s 1991 Wetland Conservation Act requires destroyed wetlands to be replaced at an acre-to-acre ratio, and sometimes, at a 2-to-1 ratio.

The DNR study shows that since 1995, more than 11,000 wetlands acres have been reported destroyed and only 6,000 replacement acres have been created. Exempted wetlands were responsible for half the lost acreage.

The MPCA study shows dramatic wetlands losses in the state’s western &uot;prairie pothole region,&uot; once famous for waterfowl populations.

Wetlands are known to reduce flooding, filter water impurities and provide wildlife habitat. During the past century, Minnesota has lost 50 percent of its wetlands, and in heavily farmed areas, more than 90 percent of wetlands are gone.

Some say the studies don’t tell the whole story. The study doesn’t take every wetlands restoration program into account. For example, the state’s Reinvest in Minnesota program and the federal Conservation Reserve Program have resulted in 249,000 aces of wetlands restoration in the past several decades.

The Wetland Conservation Act has discouraged many developers and farmers from destroying wetlands. Officials estimate that about 32,000 acres have been saved since 1995.

Still, the Wetland Conservation Act doesn’t require destroyed exempt wetlands to be reported. So if you look at the regulation side of the act, the replacing of drained and filled wetlands, and if you add in what is exempt, we are not getting to no net loss. And the true intent of the state’s Wetland Conservation Act was that there be no net loss of wetlands acreage.

It’s time our legislators revisited it and got it back to what was intended.

For everyone’s good.